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That committee, by Mr. Foot, on Monday the 18th of D ^cembe", made the follow- 
ing report, which was concurred in by both Houses nem con. 

WnEREAS the melancholy event of the violent and tragic death of Abraham Lincoln, lato Presi- 
dent of the United States, having occurred during the recess of Congress, and the two Houses shar- 
ing in tlie general grief ana desiring to manifest their sensibility upon the occasion of the public be- 
reavement: Therefore, 

Be if resolved by the Senate, (the House of Representatives concurring,) That the twa Houses of 
Congress will assemble in the Hall of the House of Representatives, on Monday, the 12th day of 
February next, that being his anniversary birthday, 'it the hour of twelve meridian, and that", in 
the presence of the two Houses there assembled, an address upon the life and character of Abraham 
Lincoln, late President of the United States, be pronounced b3- Hon. Edwin M. Stanton; and that 
the President of the Senate pro <eTO/)ore and the Speaker of the House of Representatives be re- 
quested to invite the President of the United States, the heads of the several Departments, the 
judges of the Supreme Court, the representatives of foriegn governments near this Government, 
and such officers of the army and navy as may have received the thanks of Congress who may then 
be at the seat of Government, to be present on the occasion. 

And be it further resolved, That the President of the United States be requested to transmit a 
copy of these resolutions to Mrs. Lincoln, and to assure her of the profound sympathy of the two 
Houses of Congress for her deep personal affliction, and of their sincere condolence for the late na- 
tional bereavement. 

The Hon. George Bancroft, in response to an invitation, consented to deliver the 
address, Mr. Stanton not having accepted that which was tendered to him ; and the 
committee maturely considered and published these , 

AERANGEMENTS 

FOR THE 

Memorial Address on the Life and Charactor of 

To be delivered at the request of both Houses of the Congress of the United Slates, before 
them in the Hall of the House of Eq resc7itaiives, by 

HON. GEORGE BANCROFT, 

ON THE 12th OF FEBRUARY, 1866. 



The Capitol will be closed on the morning of the 12th to all except the members of Congress. 

At ten o'clock the doors leading to the rotundo will be opened to those to whom invitations have 
been extended, under the joint resolution of Congress, by the presiding officers of the two Houses, 
and to those holding tickets of admission to the galleries issued by the chairman of the joint com- 
mittee of arrangements. The doorkeepers will have imperative orders to admit no one before ten 
o'clock except members of Congress, and no one after that hour who does not either exhibit a let- 
ter of invitation or a ticket of admission. 

The Hal! of the House of Representatives will be opened for the admission of Representatives 
and those to wliom invitations have been extended, who will be conducted to the seats assigned 
to them, as follows: 

The President of the United States will be sealed in front of the Speaker'-g table. 

The Chief Justice and Associate .lustices of the Supreme Court will occupy seats next to the 
President, on tlie right of the Speaker's table. 

The Diplomatic Corps will occupy seats next to the Supreme Court, on the right of the Speaker's 
table. 

The heads of departments will occupy seats next to the President, on the left of the Speaker's 
table. ^ 

Officers of the army and navy, who, by name, have received the thanks of Congress, will occupy 
Beats aext to the heads of the departments on the left of the Speaker's table. 

Assistant Uetids of departments, governors of States and Territories, and the mayors of Washing- 
ton and Georgetown, will occupy seats directly In the rear of the heads of the departments. 

The Cheii Justice and judges of the Court of Claims, and the cheif justice and associate justices 
of the supreme court of the District of Columbia, will occupy seats directly in the rear of the Su- 
preme Court 

The heads of bureaus in the departments will occupy seats directly in the rear of the offlcers of 
the army and »avy. 

Representatives will occupy seats on either side of the hall, in the rear of those invited, and re- 
serving four rows of seats on either side of the main aisle for Senators. 

The diplomatic gallery will be reserved exclusively for the families of the members of the Diplo- 
matic Corps, who will be provided with tickets of atfmisslon to that gallery. 

The galleries on either side of the hall will be reserved for ladies and gentlemen accompanying 
them, provided with tickets, until haifpast eleven o'clock. The front gallery at ten o'clock, and 
the ladies' galleries after half-past eleven o'clock, will be open to all holders of tickets. The door- 
keepers will be Instructed not to admit any person unprovided with a, ticket, and to collect the 
tickets from those who enter the galleries. 

The reporters' gallery will be reserved strictly for those reporters entitled to admission into tii» 
reporters' galleries of the Senate and of the House, who will be furnished with tickets of admission. 




n M E IVl O R I A 



OS 



THE i^aRTYR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STRTES. | 

ORA-TION i 

OF THa I 

HON. GEORGE BANCROFT, 

THE HISTORIAN, 

AT THE EEQUEST OE BOTH HOUSES OF OONaEESS, 

IK THE HALL OF THE HOUSE OF KEPBKSENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES. 

ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY, 12, 1866. 

"To express gratitude to God. in the name of the people, for th. preservation o 
th. TInitrStItt is my first duty in addressing you. Our thoughts next re.ert to th. 
. t^ th!Tate P eTdent by an act of parricidal treas.n. The griefof the natxo: 

been convulsed by the dire event and ^^^^ '•J^\!^^;jJ^7' rj.^^ President's messag 




ofTheh" late pVesident, Abraham Lincoln and that so much . 



reryi 

of the House of P.epresentatives: 

Sexate. 

Hon. Solomon yooT y*- 

Hon. Huh ARD Yates • • • Y^- 

Hon. Ben J. F. Wade Ol^jO- 

Hon. Wm. Pitt Fessknden ..Mt. 

Hon. Henry Wilson Mass. 

Hon. James K. Doohttle VVis. 

Hon. Jas. H. Lane ••J^\a. 

Hon. Ira Harris A" ;^,V 

Hon. James \V. Nesmith Oregon. 

Hon. Henry S. Lane w vo 

Hon. VVaitman T. Willey ^^ . va. 

Hon. Chas K. Buclalew • i "- 

Hon. John C. ^E^-D-^.so^- 



.Mo. 



House of Kepresentatives. 
Hon. Eliku B. "WASHnuRNE. . 

H in. JaMKS (i. liLAINK 

Hon. James W. Patterson. . 



...Me. 
.N. H. 



Hon. Justin b. Morbili- . . . • .... • •• 

Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks ^^■ 

Hon. Thomas A. Jenckes '^' 

Hon. Henry C. Deming •■•^ 

Hon. John A. Griswold ^A.- 

Hon. Edwin R. V. Wright N 

Hon. Thaddeus Stevens -^ 

Hon. John A. Nicholson....- " 

Hon. Francis Thomas --'^ 

Hon. KOBERT C. SCHENCK ^'1 

Hon. George S. Shanklin ■'^ 

Hc-n. Godlove S. Orth. \^; 

Hon j-osjiPH W. McClukg ••f 

Hon. l^mNDO C. Beaman.... Mu 

Hon. John A. Kabson ^'^j; 

IluU. IrnAMAR C. ?LOAN 

Hon. William HiGBY -;;> 

Hon. AVlLLIAM WlNPOM •• ' 

Hon. J. H. 1). Henderson ^it-^. 

Hon. Sidney Clark „. ,' 

Hon. Kelhan V. Whalky »> • ^ 



\ 



3 

The reporters for the Congressional Globe ia the Senate and in tlie House vriU occupy the reporters' 
acsk in front of the Clerk's table, ^^^o , <.io-ii 

The House of Representatives will be called to oixler by the Speaker at 12 o clock. 

The Marine Band, stationed in the upper vestibule, will perform appropriate music, ceasing 
when the exercises are to be commenced , ^, - , •,!«,.„ 

The Senate will assemble at 12 o'clock, and after prayers and the reading of the journal will pio- 
ceed to the hall of the House of Uepru-senseutives, following their President i^ro tempore and their 
Secretary and preceded hv their Sergeant at- Anns. On reaching the hall of the House of Kepre- 
sentatives the Senators will take these^iW reserved for them on the right and left of the mam aisle. 

The President pro tempore will occupy the Speaker's chair. The Speaker of the House will oc- 
cupy a seat at his left. The chaplains of the Senate and of the House will occupy seats on the right 
and left of the presiding officers of their respective Houses. n,„,t „f ,>,, 

The orator of the day, Hon, George Bancroft, will occupy a seat at the table of the Clerk ot the 
Hou«e The chairmen of the joint committee of arrangements will occupy seats at the right aad 
left of the orator, and next to them will be seated the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the 

The oOier officers of the Senate and of the House will occupy seats on the floor at the right and 
the left of the Speaker's platform. . 

All being in readiness, the Hon. Lafayette S. Foster, President of the Senate j3S-o fessipore, will 
call the Houses of Congress to order 

Prayer will be offered bv the Rev. Dr. Boyntim, Chaplain of the House of Kepresentatives, 

The presiding officer will then introduce to the audience the Hon, George Bancroft, of New 'kork, 
who will deliver the memorial address. 

The benediction will be pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Gray, Chaplain of the Senate. 

On the conclusion of the benediction, the Senators, following their President pro tempore and 
their Secretary, and preceded by their Sergeant-at-Arms, will return to the Senate Chamber; and 
the President of the United States, the orator of the day, and those present by invitation on the 
floor of the House, will withdraw. 

The Marine Band, stationed in the rotunda, will, after the Senate shall have returned to the ben- 
ue Chamber, perform national airs. The Capitol will then be open to the public. 

The Commissioner of Public Buildings, Sergeants-at-Arms of the Senate and of the House, and 
the Doorkeeper of the House, are charged with the e:s:ecution of these arrangements. 

'^ ! t. SOLOirOX FOOT, 

Chairman on Ute part of the Senate. 

E. B. WASHBURXE, 
ChairKian on the, part of the Home. 

These arrangements were carried out with admirable precision, and in the pres- 
ence of aa illustrious audience the orator of the day delivered the following 

ORATION. 

Senators, Representatives, of America : 

GOD IN HISTORY. 

That God rules in the affairs of men is as certain as any truth of physical science. 
On the great moving power which is from the beginning hangs the world of the 
senses and the world of thought and action. Eternal wisdom oiar.shals the great 
procession of the nations, working in patient continuity through the ages, never halt- 
ing and never abrupt, eucompossing all events in its oversight, and ever effecting 
its will, though mortals may sluiiaber iu apathy or oppose with madness. Kings 
are lifted up or thrown down, nations come and go, republics flourish and wither 
dynasties pass away like a tale that is told; but nothing is by chance, though men 
iu their ignorance of causes may think so. Tht deeds of time are governed, as well 
as judged, by the decrees of eternity. The caprice of fleetiug existences bends to 
the immoveable omnipotence which plants its foot on all the centuries, and has 
neither change of purpose nor repose. Sometimes, like a messenger through the 
thick darkness of night, it steps along mysterious ways; but when the hour strikes 
for a people, or for mankind, to pass into a new form of being, unseen hsuds craw 
the bolts from the gates of futurity; an all subduing influence prepares the minds oi 
men for the coming revolution ; those v;ho plan resistance find themselves In conflict 
with the will of Providence, rather than with human devices; and all hearis and all un- 
derstandings, moat of all the opinion.=i and influences of the uuwilUug, are wonder- 
fully attracted and compelled to bear forward the change which becomes more an 
obedience to the law of universal nature than sabmisoion co the arbitrament of man. 

GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 

In the fulness of time a republio rose up in the wilderness of America. Tho usands 
of years lad passed away before this child of the ages could be born. From what- 
ever there was of good in the systems of former centuries she drew her nourishment ; 
the wrecks of the past were her warnings. With the deepest seati.ment of faith 
fixed in her inmost nature, she disenthr.tUed religion from bondage to temporal 
power, that her worship might he worship only inspirit and in truth. The wisdom 
which had passed from India through (freece, with what Greece had added of her 
own; the jurisprudence of Rome; th« medieval oauuicipalities ; theTeutouic method 



4 

of representation ; the political experience of England ; tte benignant wisdom of 
the expositors of the law of nature and of nations in France aitd Holland, all shed 
on her their selectest influence. She washed the gold of political wisdom from the 
sands wherever it was found; she cleft it from the rocks; she gleaned it among ruins. 
Out of all the discoveries of statesmen and sages, out of all the experience of past 
human life, she compiled a perennial political philosophy, the primorJinal principles 
of national ethics. The wise men of Europe sought the best government in a mix- 
ture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy ; and America went behind these 
names to extract from them the vital elements of social forms, and blend them har- 
moniou3ly in the free commonwealth, which comes nearest to the illustration of 
the natural equality of all men. She entrusted the guardianship of established 
rights to law; the movements of reform to the spirit of the people, and drew her 
force from the happy reconciliation of both. 

TEREITORIAL EXTENT OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Republics had heretofore been limited to small cantons oy cities and their depecf- 
dencies; America, doing that which the like had not before been known upon the 
earth, or believed by kings and statesmen to h& possible; e>:tended her republic 
across a continent. Under her auspices the vine of liberty t»ok deep root and^ filled 
the land; the hills were covered wi^h its- shadow; its boughs were like the goodly 
cedars, and reached unto both oceacsw The fame of this only daughter of freedom 
went out into all the lands ol the earth ; from her the human race drew hope. 

PROPHECIES- ON THE CONSEQUSNCES OF SLAVERY. 

Neither hereditary monaj'ehy nor hereditary aristocracy planted itself on our 
soil; the only hereditarj^ c-ondition that fastened itself upon us was servitude. 
Nature works in sincerity, and is ever true to its law. The bee hives honey, the 
viper distills poison ; the vine stores its juices, and so do the poppy and the upas. 
In lik« manner, every thought and every action ripens its seed, eacii in its kind. In 
the individual man, and still more in a nation, a just idea gives life, and progress, 
and glory ; a false conception portends disaster, shame, and death. A hundred and 
twenty years ago, a West Jersey Quaker wrote: "This trade of importing slaves 
is dark gloominess hanging over the land ; thg- consequences will be grevioua to 
posterity." At the Xorth the growth of slavery was arrested by natural causes;, 
in the region nearest the tropics it throve rankly, and worked itself into the orgair- 
ism of the rising States. Virginia stood between the two; with soil, and climat-e, 
resources demanding free labor, and yet capable of the prxjfitable employmeat ofi 
the slave. She was the land of great statesmen; and they saw the danger of hei^ 
being whelmed under the rising flood in time to struggle against the delusions of 
avarice and pride. Ninety-four years ago, the legislature of Virginia addressed the- 
British king, saying that the trade in slaves was "of great inhumanity," was opposed; 
to the "security and happiness" of their constituents, "would in time have the most 
destructive influence," and "endanger their very existence." And the king answered 
them, that "upon pain of his highest displeasure, the importation of slaves should 
not be in any respect obstructed." "Pharisaical Britain," wiote Franklin in behalf 
of Virginta, "to pride thyself in setting free a single slave that happened to land 
on thy coasts, while thy laws continue a tratfio whereby so many hundreds of 
thousands are dragged into a slavery that is entailed on their posteiitj'."' "A 
serious view of this subject," said Patrick Henry in 1773, "gives a gloomy prospect 
to future times." In the same year George Mason wrote to the legislatuie of 
Virginia : "The laws of impartial Providence may avenge our injustice upon ons 
posterity." In Virginia, and in the Continental Congress, Jefferson, with the 
approval of Edmund Pendleton, branded the slave-trade as piracy ; and he fixed in 
the Declaration of Independence as the corner-stone of America : "All men are 
created equal, w^ith an unalienable right to liberty." On the first organization of 
temporary governments for the continental domain Jeftersoc, but for the default of 
New Jersey, would, in 178-t, have consecrated every part of that territory to free- 
dom. In the formation of the national Constitution Virginia, opposed by a part of 
New England, vainly struggled to abolish the slave trade at on.ce and forever;; and 
when the ordinance of 1787 was introduced bj' Nathan Dane, without the clause 
prohibiting slavery, it was tlixough the favorable di.«posit,ion of Virginia and the- 
South thut the clause of Jefferson we.a restored, and the whole iorih west«iii( 
Territory — all the territory that then belonged tp the nation — was reserved for the 
labor o/ freemen. 

DESPAIR OF THE MEN ,0F THE REV0l4lIT,i;0N. 
The hope prevailed in Virginia that the abolition of the slave-trade would bring 
•with It the gi;,adual abolition of elavwy ; but the expectation was doomed to 



Sisappointment. In supporting incipient measure? fot emaueipauon, JefT'^i'son 
encountered difficulties greater than he could overcome; aud after vain wrestlings, 
the words that broke from him, "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that 
God is ju^t that his justice cannot sleep forever," were words of despair. It was 
the desire of Washington's heart that Vii'ginia should i-emove slavery by a public 
act; and as the prospects of a genei-al emancipation grew more and more dim he, 
in utter hopelessness of the action of the State, did all that he could by bequeathing 
freedoD to his own slav^. Good and true men had, from the days of ITI'ti, thought 
of colonizing the negro in the home of his ancestors. But the iflea of colonization 
was thougQit to increase the difficulty of emancipation; and in spite of strong 
support, while it accomplished much good for Africa, it proved impracticable as a 
remedy at home. Madison who in early life disliked slavery so much that he 
wished "to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves;" Madison, who held 
that where slavery exists "the republican theory becomes fdilacious;" Madison, 
Avho in the last year of his life would not consent to the annexation of Texas, lest 
his countrymen should fill it with slaves ; Madison, who said, "slavery is the 
greatest evil under which the nation labors, a portentous evil, an evil — moral, 
political, and economical — a sad blot on our free country," went mournfully into 
old age with the cheerless words: "No satisfactory plan has yet been devised for 
taking out the stain." 

^E\v Views of slavery. 

Tlie men of the Revolution passed away. A new generation sprang up, impatient 
that an institution to which they clung should be condemned as inhuman, unwise 
and unjust; in the throes of discontent at the self reproach of their fathers, and 
blinded by the lustre of wealth to be acquired by the culture of a new staple, they 
devised the theory that slaver}', v/hich they would not abolish, was not evil, but 
good. They turned on the friends of colonization, and confidently demanded, "Why 
take blsck men from a civilized and Christian country, where their labor is a source 
of immense gain and a power to control the markets of the world, and send them to 
a land of ignorance, idolatry, and irdolence, which was the home of their fore- 
fathers, but not theirs ? Slavery is a blessing. Were they not in their ancestral 
land naked, scarcely lifted above brutes, ignorant of the course of the sun, con- 
trolled by nature? And in tl eir new abode, have they not been taught to know 
the difference of the seasons, to plough, and plant, and reap, to drive ozen, to tame 
the horse, to exchange their scanty dialect for the richest of all the languages 
among men, and the stupid adoration of follies for the puiest religion ? And since 
slavery is good for the blacks, it is good for their masters, bringing opulence and 
the oportunity of educating a race. The slavery of the black is good in itself; he 
shall serve tne wliiteman forevor. And nature, which better understood the 
quality of fleeting interest and passion, laughed, as it caught the echo: "man" 
and "forever !" 

SLAVERY AT HOME. 

A regular development of pretentions followed the new declaration with logical 
consistency. Under the old declaration every one of the States had retained, each 
for itself, the right of manumitting all slaves by an ordinary act of legislation ; 
now, the power of the people over servitude through their lea;islatures was cur- 
tailed, and the privileged class were swift in imposing legal and constitutional 
obstjruct'ons on the people themselves. The power of emancipation was narrowed 
or taken away. The slave might not be disquieted by education. There remained 
an uncorifessrd consciousne.ss that the system of bondage was wrong, and a restlesa 
memory that it was at variauce wiih the true American tradition ; its safety was 
therefore to be secured by political organization. The generation that made the 
Constitution take care for the predominance of freedom in Congr.ess, by the opdi^ 
nance of Jefferson ; the new school aspired to secure for slavery an equality of votes 
in the Senate; and while it hinted at an organic act that should concede to the 
collective South a veto power on national legislation, it assumed that each State 
separately had the light to revise and nullify laws of the United States, according 
to the discretion of its judgment. 

SLAVERY AND FG3EIGN RELATIONS. 

The new theory hung as a bias on the foreign relations of the country ; there 
could be no recognition of Hayti, nor even of the American colony of Liberia; and 
the world was given to understand that the establishment of free labor in Cuba 
would be a reasou for wresting that island from Spain. Terrritories were anne.xed 
Louisiana, Florida, Texas, half of Mexico ; slavery must have its share in them a 1, 
and it accepted for a time a dividing line between the unquestioned do naim o ft e 



labor and that in -which involxintarr labor was to be tolerated. A few years passed 
away, and the new school strong and arrogant, demanded and receiyed an apology 
for applying the Jefferson proviso to Oregon. 

SQUATTEK SOVEREIGNTY. 

The application of that proviso was interrupted for three administrations ; bnt 
mstioe moved steadily onward. In the news that the men of California had chosen 
freedom, Calhoun bei^rd the knell of parting slavery; and on his deathbed he 
coHnseled secession. Washington, and Jefftfrson, and Madison had died despainng 
of the abolition of slavery ; Calhoun died in despair at the growth of freedom. 
His system rushed irresistibly to its natural development. The" death struggle for 
Califorcia was followed by a short truee ; but the new school of politicians who 
said that slavery was not evil, but eood, soon sought to recover the ground they 
had lost, and confident of securing Texas, they demanded that the established line 
in the TerritoiitS between freedom and slavery should be blot&J out. The country 
believing in the strength and enterprise and expansive energy of freedom, made 
answer, though reluctantly : 'Beit so; let there be no strife between brethren; 
let freedom and slavery compete for the Territories on equal terms, in a fair field 
under an impartial administration ;" and on this theory, if on any, the contest 
might have been left to the decision of time. 

DEED SCOTT DECISION. 

The South started back in appallment from its victory ; for it knew that a 
fair competition forebo-^ed its defeat. But where could it now tind an ally to save 
it from its own mi?tate ? What I have nest ta say is spoken with no emotion but 
regret. Our meeting to-day is, as it were, at the grave, in the presence of Eternity, 
an'l the truth must be uttered in soberness and sincerity. In a great republic, as 
was (bserved more than two thousand years ago, any attempt to overturn the 
state owes its strength to aid from some branch of the government. The Chief 
Justice of the United States, without any necessity or occasion, volunteered to 
come to the rescue of the theory of slavery. And from his court there lay no 
appeal but to the bar of humanity and history. Against the Constitution, against 
the meriioryof the nation, against a previous decision, against a ceries of enactments, 
he decided that the slave is property that slave propei-ty is entitled to no less 
protection than any other property, that the Constitution upholds it in every 
Territory against any act of a local legislature, and even against Congress itself; 
or, as the President tersely promulgated the saying: "Kansas is as much a slave 
State as South Carolina or Georgia ; slavery, by virtue of the Constitution, exists 
in every Territory." The municipal character of slavery being thus taken away, 
and slave property decreed to be "sacred," the authority of the eourts was invoked 
to introduce it by the comity of .aw into States where slavery had been abolished ; 
and in one of the courts of the United States a judge pronounced the African 
slave-trade legitimate, and numerous and powerful advocates demanded its 
restoratiou. 

TANET AND SLAVE RACES. 

Moreover, the Chief Justice, in his elaborate opinion, announced what had' neve r 
been heard from any magistrate of Greece or Rome — what was unknown to civil 
law, and canon law. and feudal law, and common law, -^d constitutional ftw ; 
Bnknown to Jay, to Rutledge, Ellsworth, and Marshall — that there are "slave races."' 
The spirit of evil i* intensely logical. Having the authority of this decision, five 
States swiftly followed the earlier example of a sixth, and opened the way for 
reducing the free negro to bondage; the migrating free negro became a slave if he 
but touched the soil of a seventh ; and an eighth, from its extent and soil and 
mineral rescrrces, destined to incalculable greatness, closed its eyes on its coming 
prosperity, and enacted — as by Taney's decision it had the right to do — that every 
free bla<k man who would live within its limits must accept the conditioE of slavery 
for himself and Lis posterity. 

SECESSION RESOLVED ON. 

Only one step more remained to be taken. Jefferson and the leading etatesraea 
of his day h(-ld fast to the idea that the enslavement of the African was socially, 
morally, and politically wrong. The new school was founded exactly upon the oppo- 
site idea ; and thej* resolved first to distract the Democratic party, for which the 
Supreme Court had now furnished the means, and then to establish a new govern- 
ment, with negro slavery for its corner stione, as socially, morally, and politically 
right. 



THE ELECTION. 



As the nresidential election drew on, one of the old traditional parties did not 

:SliEssi-:ho^;^:^t;.^t^.^^^^^ 

who were great after the flesh; conld relief come from one whose wisdom waB 
like the wisdom of little children? 

EAKLY LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

The choice of America fell on a man born west of the Allghanies. in the cabin of 

DOor people of Hardin county, Kentucky— Abraham Lincoln. .,, ,^. u,,. his 

^ His^mother could read, but not write; his father could f °«^/j^^^'' ' ff^ ^ '^ 

pa7ents sent him, with an old spelling book, to school, and he learned in his 

^'Wh:n°'eigh?%'at;id he floated down the Ohio with his father on a v^jft which 
bore the family and all their possessions to the shore of Indiana; and, ^hiW as °e 
was he iave help as they t\,iled through dense forests to the interior of bpencer 
Zntv ^There in the land of free labor he grew up in a log-cahin, with the solemn 
so iJS'e fo?h s eacher in his meditative hoL. Of Asiatic literature he knew only 
the Bible- of Greek, Latin, and medieval, no more than the translation of ^sop 9 
F hies of FDCH41 John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The traditions of George 
F^x and Willifm Penn passed to him dimly alonglhe lines of two centuries through 
his ancestors, who were Quakers. 

HIS EDUCATION. 
Otherwise his education was altogether American. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence wis his compendium of political wisdom, the ^YZ'tZt^lllToC, 
study, and something of Jefferson and Madison reached him t^/«"§^ f^^" ^e life 
whom he honored from boyhood. For the rest, from day to day, he lived t^e me 
Tfthi American people; walked in its light; reasoned with its reason ; thought 
with its power of ^tho'ught; felt the beating of i^s mighty teart; and so was m 
Tvery wa? a child of nature-a child of the West-a child of America. 

HIS PKOGKESS IN LIFE. 
At nineteen, feeling impulses of ambition to get on in the world ^^ engaged 
himself to go down the Mississippi in a flat-boat, receiving en <i°l «:^^= ^^ r^^^^J^^ 
h 8 wages aaa afterwards he made the trip once more. At twenty-one he drove 
hTaLJs cattle as the family migrated t'o Illinois, aid ^P^'^^ ^l^^^^ ^u^'te's ia 
new homestead in the wild. At twenty three he was a ^^pt'^^'^.^f, J^^^'i^^^'.^b^^t 
the Black Hawk war. He kept a shop ; he learned something of surveying , but 
of ^glsh literature he addei to Bu^yan ^S'-"^- ^"'i ^^tT^^ve ? eShl veaf» 
twenty-five he was elected to the legislature of Illinois where l^e^^^T^^^J^^^^y^^;^; 
Z twinty-seven he was admitted to the bar. . In 1837 he chose his \^^^^^'^^^J_ 
field the beaudful center of the richest land in the State. In 1847 he^ as a mem 
be k the national Congress, where he voted about forty_ times in favor of the 
p?n:ipleofSeJeffersoS proviso. In 1854 he ?-/ ^'^ -^--:,, ^.t^Ln^a" 
Illinois to the American Senate a Dem. cr.t who would '^^■^'^^"^^JX n^M v Prar^e 
In 1858, a, the rival of Douglass, he went before the peop e of ^^e mighty Prar.e 
State saVing- " Tiiis Union cannot permanently endure, half slave and half fiee 
Se Ua?on l-iU not be dissolved, bu^ the house will cease to be ^-^f 4^ j;/^^7^ 
in 1861 with no experience whatever as an executive officer, while btates weie 
madly lying from tLir orbit, and wise men knew not where o And ccunse , thi 
descendant of Quakers, this pupil of Buoyan. this child of the great A\ est was 

*'^lS::Siir^dS;;rof the duty that devoted on him. and was resolved 
to lulflU it. 

HE GOES TO WASHINGTON. 
As on the eleventh of February. 1861, he left Spri^ngfield, which for a quarter of 
a cintury had been his happy home, to the crowd of his friends and neighbors 
whom he was never more tVmeet, he spoke a solemn farewell : ' I know not how 
Toon I shall see you again. A duty has devolved upon me, greater than that wh i.h 
has devolved upon any other man since Washington. He never would have suc- 
ceiied except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which he at all times relied. 



8 

On t"he same Almighty Being I i|<]ace my reliance. Pray that I may receive that 
Divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is 
certain." To the men of Indiana he said : " I am but an accidental, temporary 
instrument; it is your business to rise up and preserve the Union and liberty." 
At the capital of Ohio he saiS : " Without a name, without a reason why I should 
have a name, there has fallen upon me a task such as did not rest even"upon the 
Father of his country," At various places in New York, especially at Albany 
before the legislature, which tendered him the united support of the great Empire 
State, he said : "While I hold myself the humblest of all the individuals who have 
ever been elevated to the Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than 
any of them. I bring a true heart to the work. I must rely upon the people of 
the whole country for support; and with their sustaining aid even I, humble as I 
am, cannot fail to CRi-ry the ship of State safely through the storm." To the 
assembly of New Jersey at Trenton, he explained ; " I shall take the ground I deem 
most just to the Norfo, the East, the West, the South, and the whole country, in good 
temper, certainly with no malice to any section. I am devoted to peace, but it 
may be uecessary to put the foot down firmly." In the old Independence Hall of 
Philadelphia he said : " I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring 
from the sentiments embodied in the DeclRration of Independence, which gave liberty, 
not alone to the people of this country^ but to the world in all future time. If the 
country cannot be saved without giving up tliat principle, I would rather be 
assassinated on the spot than surrender it. I have said nothing but what I am 
willing to live and die by." 

IN WHAT STATE HE FOUND THE COUNTEY. 

Traveling in the dead of night to escape assassination, Lincoln arrived at Wash- 
ington nine days before his inauguration. The outgoing President, at the opening 
of the session of Congress had still kept as the majority of his advisers men engaged 
in treason : "had declared that in case of even an imaginary apprehension of dan- 
ger from notions of freedom among the slaves, " disunion would become inevitable." 
Lincoln and others had questioned the opinion of Taney ; such impugning he 
ascribed to the " factious temper of the times." I'he favorite doctrine of the 
majority of the Democratic party on the power of a territorial legislature over 
slavery he condemned as an attack on " the sacred rights of property." The State 
legislatures, he insisted, must repeal what he called "their unconstitutional and 
obnoxious enactments," and which, if such were "null and void," or "it would be 
impossible for any human power to save the Union." Nay 1 if these unimportant 
acts were not repealed, " the injured States would be justified in revolutionary 
resistance to the Goverment of the Union." He maintained that no State might 
secede at its sovereign will and pleasure ; that the Union was meant for perpetuity ; 
and that Congress might attempt to preserve, but only by conciliation ; that "the 
Bword was not placed in their hands to preserve it by force;" that "the last des- 
perate remedy of a despairing people " would be " an explanatory amendment 
recognizing the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Ameri- 
can Union he called " a confederacy " of States, and he thought it a duty to make 
the appeal for the amendment " before any of these States should separate them- 
selves fiom the Union." The views of the Lieutenant General, containing some 
patriotic advice, "conceded the right of secession," pronounced a quadruple rup- 
ture of the Union " a smaller evil than the re'uniting of the fragments by the 
sword," and " eschewed the idea of invading a seceded State." After changes in 
the Cabinet, the President informed Congi'ess that "matters were still worse;" 
that " the South suffered serious grievances," which should be redressed " in peace." 
The day after this message the flag of the Union was fired upon from Fort Moultrie, 
and the insult was not revenged or noticed. Senators in Congress telegraphed to 
their constituents to seize th». national forts, and they were not arrested. The 
finances of the country were grievously embarrassed- Its little army was not 
within reach — the part of it in Texas, with all stores, was made over by its com- 
mander to the seceding insui'gents. One State after another voted in convention ta 
go out of the Union. A peace congress, so-called, met at the request of Viiginia, 
to concert the terms of a capitulation for a eontinuance of the Union. Congress 
in both branches sought to devise concilatory expedients; the Territories of the 
Country were organized in a manner not to conSict with any pretensiocs of the 
South, or any decison of the Supreme Court; and, nevertheless, the seceding States- 
formed at Montgomery a provisional government, aad pursued their relentless pur- 
• pose with such success that the Li«utenantGeneral feared' the city of Washington 
might find itself "included in a foreign country," and proposed, among thaoptions 
for the consideration of Lincoln, to bid the seceded States " depart in peace." The 
great Republic seemed to have its emblem in. the vast unfinished Capitol, at 



"9 ' 1 

*!iat Dioment surro-anded ^Dj'' masse? of stone and prostrate columns never yet lifted 
into their places: seemingly the monument of high but delusive aspirations, the 
confused wreck of inthoate ma>gnificence, sadder than any ruin of Egyptian Thebes, 
or Athens. 

tns INAUGURATION. 

The fourth ef March came. With instinctive wisdom, the new President, speaking 
to the peoplfc on taking the oath of office, put aside every question that divided 
the country, and gained a right to universal support, by planting himself on the 
single idea of Union. That Union he declared to be unbroken and perpetual, 
and he announced his determination to fulfill " the simple duty of taking care that 
'the laws be faithfully executed in all the S ates." Seven days later, the convention 
of confederate States unanimously adopted a constitution of their own ; and the 
new goverEment was authoritatively anonunced to be founded on the idea that 
slavery is the natural and normal condition of the negro race. The issue was 
made up whether the great Republic was to maintain its providential place in the 
history of mankind, or a rebellion founded on negro sl&very gain a recognition of 
its principle througout the civilized world. To the disaffected Lincoln had said : 
" You can have no conflict without being j^ourselves the aggressors." To fire the 
passions of the soutiiern portion of the people, the confederate government chose 
to become aggressor; and on the morning of the 12ih of April began the bom- 
bardment of Fort Sumter, and compelled its evacution. 

UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE. 

It is the glory of the late President that he had pei'fect faith in the perpetuity 
of tiie Union. Supported in advance by Douglass, who spoke as with the voice of 
a million, he instantly called a meeting of Congress, and summoned the people to 
come up and repossess the foris, places, and property which had been seized from 
the Union. The men of the North were trained in schools ; industrious and frugal ; 
many of theta delicately bred, their minds teeming with ideas and fertile in plana 
of enterprise; given to the culture of the arts; eager in the pursuit of wealth, 
yet employing wealth less for ostentation than for developing the resources of their 
country; seeking liappiness in the calm of domestic life; and such lovers of peace 
that for generai;ioDs they had been reputed unwarlike. Now, at the cry of their 
country in its distress, they rose up with unappeasable patriotism ; not hirelings — 
the purest and of the best blood in the land ; sons of a pious ancestry, with a clear 
perception of duty, unclouded faith and fixed resolve to succeed, they thronged 
round the President to support the wronged, the beautiful flag of the nation. The 
halls of theological seminaries sent forth their young men, whose lips were touched 
with eloquence, who^e hearts kindled with devotion to serve in the ranks, and 
make their way to command only as they learned the art of war. Striplings in 
the colleges, as well the most gentle and the most studious ; those of sweetest tem- 
per and lovliest character and brightest genius passed from their classes to the 
camp. The lumbermeu sprang forward from the forests, the mechanics from their 
benches, where they had been trained by the exercise of political rights to share 
the life and hope of the Republic, to feel their responsibility to their forefathers, 
their posterity and mankind, went forth resolved that their dignity as a constituent 
part of this Republic should not be impaired. Farmers and sons of farmers left 
the land but half ploughed, the grain but half planted, and, taking up the musket, 
learned to- face without fear the presence of peril and the coming of death in tha 
shocks of war, while their hearts were still attracted to the charms of their rural 
life, and all the tender affections of home. Whatever there was of truth and faith 
and public love in the common heart broke out with one expression. The mighty 
winds blew from every quarter to fan the flame of the sacred and unquenched fire, 

THE WAR A WORLD- WIPE WAR, 

For a time the war was thought to be confined to our own domestic affairs; bui 
it was soon seen that it involvefl the destinies of mankind, and its principles and 
Oiuses shook the politics of Europe to the oeuter, and from Lisbon to Pekin divided 
the governments of the world. 

GREAT BRITAIN. 

There was a kingdom whose people had in an eminent degree attained to free- 
dom of industry and the security of person and property. Its middle olasa rose to 
greatness. Out of that class sprung the noblest poets and philosophers, whose 
words built up the intellect of its people ; skillful navigators, to find out the many 
paths of the oceans ; discoverers in natural science, wiiose inventions guided its ii\ 



10 

dustry to wealth, till it equaled any nation of the world in letter?, and excelled all 
in trade and commerce. But its government was become a government of land, 
and not of men; every blade of grass was represented, but only a small minority 
of the people. In the transition from the feudal forms, the heads of the social or- 
ganization freed themselves from the military services which were the conditions 
of their tenure, and, throwing the burden on the iadustrial classes, kept all the soil 
to themselves. Va?t estates that had been managed bj- monasteries as endowmentB 
for religion and charity were impropriated to swell the wealth of courtiers and fa- 
vorit^rs; and the commons, where the poor man once '.ad his right of pasture, were 
taken away, and, under forms of law, enclosed distribuiively within their own do- 
mains. Although no law forbade any inhabitant from purchasing land, the costli- 
ness of the transfer constituted a piohibition ; so that it was the rule of that coun- 
try that the plough should not be in the hands of its owner. The chtrch was rested 
on a contradiction, claiming to be an embodiment of absolute ti'uth, and yet was a 
creature of the statute boofe. 

HEE SENTIMENTS. 
The prosress of time increased the terrible contrast between wealth and poverty ; 
in their years of strength, the laboring people, cut off from all share in geverning 
the state, derived a scanty support from the severest toil, and had no hope for old 
age but in public charity or death. A grasping ambition had dotted the world 
with military J o~ts, kept watch over our borders on the northeast, at the Bermu- 
das, in the West Indies, held the gates of the Pacific, of the Southern and of the In- 
dian ocean, hovered on our northwe.-'t at Vancouver, held the whole of the newest 
continent, and the entrances to the old Mediterranean and Red Sea ; and garrisoned 
forts all the way from Madras to China. That aristocracy had gazed with terror 
on the growth of a conmouwealth where freeholds existed by the million, and reli- 
gion was not in bondage to the state; and now they ceuld not repress their joy at 
its perils. They had not one word of sympathy for the kind hearted poor man's 
son whom America had chosen for her chief; they jeered at his large hands, and 
long feet, and ungainly stature ; and the British secretary of state for foreign affairs 
made bate to send word through the palaces of Europe that the great Republic 
was in its agony, that the Republic was no more, that a head stone was ail that re- 
mained dae by the law of nations to "the late Union." But it is written: "Let 
the dead bury their dead :" they may not bury the living. Let the dead bury 
their dead : let a bill of reform remove the worn-out government of a class, and in- 
fuse new life into the British constitution by confiding rightful power to the 
people. 

HER POLICY. 
But while the vitality of America is indestructible, the British government hur- 
ried to do what never before had been done b}' Christian powers, what was in di- 
rect conflict with its own exposition of public law in the time of our struggle for 
independence. Though the insurgent States had not a ship in an open harbor, it 
invested them with all the rights of a belligerent, even on the ocean ; and this, too, 
when the rebellion was not only directed against the gentlest and most benefiicent 
government on earth, without a shadow of justifiable cause, but when the rebellion 
was dirested against human nature itself for the perpetual enslavement of a race. 
And the effect of this recognition was that acts in th«m=elves piratical found shel- 
ter in British courts of law. The resources of British capitalists, their workshops, 
their armories, their private arsenals, their shipyards, were in league with the in- 
surgents, and every British harbor in the wide world became a safe port for Bi-itish 
ships, manned by British sailors, and armed with British guns, to prey on our 
peaceful commerce; even our own ships coming from British ports, freighted with 
Britisn products, or that had carried gifts of grain to the English poor. The prime 
minister in the House of Commons, sustained by cheers, scoffed at the thought that 
their laws could be amended at our request, so as to preserve real neutrality ; and 
to remonstrances, now owned to have been just, their secretary answered that they 
could not change their laws ad ivfinitum. 

RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 
The people of America then wished, as they always have wished, as they still 
wish, friendly relations with England ; and no man in England or America can de- 
sire it more strongly than I. This < ountry has always yearned for good relations 
with England. Thrice only in all its history has that yearning been fairly met; 
in the days of Hampden and Cromwell, again in the first ministry of the elder Pitt, 
and once again in the ministry of Shelburne. Not that there Imve not at all times 
been just men among the peers of Britain — like Halifax in the days of James the 



11 

FRANCE AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

Second, or a Granville, an Argyll, or a Houghton in ours; and we cannot be indif- 
ferent to a country that produces statesmen like Cobden and Bright; but the best 
bower anchor of peace was the working class of England, who suffered most from 
our civil war, but who, while they broke their diminished bread in sorrow, always 
enfourap'ed us to pei-?evere. 

The act of recognizing the. rebel belligrerents was concerted with Fiance ; France, 
=0 beloved in America, on jvl^ich she had conferred the greatest benefits that one 
people ever conferred on another ; France, which stands foremost on the continent 
of Europe for the solidity of her culture, as well as for the bravery and generous 
impulses other sons; France, which for centuries had been moving steadily in its 
own way towards intellectual and political freedom. The policy regarding further 
colonization of America by European powers, known eommoLly as the doctrine of 
Monroe, had its origin in France; and if it takes any man's name, should bear the 
name of Tnrgot. It was adopted by Louis the Sixteenth, in the cabinet of which 
Vergennes was the most important member. It is emphatically the policy of France ; 
to which, with transient deviations, the Bourbons, the First Napoleon, the House 
of Orleans have ever adhered. 

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON AND MEXICO. 
The late President was perpetually harassed by rumors that the Emperor Napo- 
leon the Third desired formally to recognize the States in rebellion as an indepen- 
dent power, and that England held him back by her reluctance, or France by her 
traditions of freedom, or he himself by his own better judgment and clear percep- 
tion of events. But the republic of' Mexico, on our borders, was, like ourselves, 
distracted by a rebellion, and from a siujilar cause. The monarchy of England had 
fastened upon us slavery which did not disappear with independence; in like man- 
ner, the ecclesiastical policy established by the Spanish council of the Indies, in the 
days of Charles the Fifth, 'and Philip the Second, retained its vigor in the Mexican 
republic. The fifty years of civil war undtr which she had languished was doe to 
the bigoted system' which was the legacy of monarchy, just as here the inheritance 
of slavery kept alive political strife, and culminated in civil war. As wit'i us there 
could be no quiet but through the end of slavery, so in Mexico there could be no 
prosperity until the crushing tyranny of intolerance should cease. The party of 
slavery in the United States sent their emissaries to Europe to solicit aid; and so 
did the party of the church in Mexico, as organize'^ by the old Spanish council of 
the Indies, but with a different result. Just as the Republican party had made an 
end of the rtbellion, and was establishing the best government ever known in that 
region, and giving promise to the nation of order, peace, and prosperltj-, word was 
brought us, in the moment of our deepest affliction, that the French emperor, moved 
by a'desire to erect in North America a buttress for imperialism, would transform 
the republic of Mexico into a secundo geniture for the house of Hapsburgh. Amer- 
ica might complain ; she could not then interpose, and delay seemed justifiable. It 
was seen that Mexico could not, with all its wealth of land, compete in cereal 
products with our northwest, nor, in tropical products, with Cuba; nor could it, 
under a disputed dynasty, attract capital, or create public works, or develope 
mines, or borrow money ; so that the imperial system of Mexico, which was forced 
at once to recognize the wisdom of the policy of the republic by adopting it, could 
prove only an unremunerating drain on the French treasury for the support of an 
Austrian adventurer. 

THE PERPETUITY OF REPUBLICAN INSTITL'TIONS. 

Meantime, a new series of m'^raentous questions grows up, and forces themselve^ 
on the consideration of the thoughtful. Republicanism has learned hovv- to intro" 
duce into its constitution every element of order, as well as every element of free- 
dom; but thus far the continuitj' of its government has seemed to depend on the 
continuity of elections. It is now to be considered how perpetuity is to be secured 
against foreign occupation. The successor of Charles the First of England dated 
his reign from the death of his father; the Bourbons, coming back after a long se- 
ries of revolutions, claimed that the Louis who became the king was the eighteenth 
of that name. The present emperor of the French, disdaining a title from election 
alone, is called tlie third of his name. Shall a republic have less power of continu- 
ance when invading armies prevent a peaceful resort to the ballot-box ? What 
force shall it attach to intervening legislation ? What validity to debts contracted 
for its overthrow? These momentous questions are by the invasion of Mexico 
thrown up for solution. A free State once truly constituted should be as undying 
as its people ; the republic of Mexico must rise again. 



12 

THE POPE OF KOME AND THE REBELLION. 

It was the condition of affairs in Mexico that involved the Pope of R'une is our 
KJifBculties so far that he alone among temporal sovereigns recogni; "d the chief of 
the confederate States as a president, and his supporters as a peop. ; r d in leU 
ters to two great prelates of the Catholic Church in the United States g: .'e coun- 
sels for peace at a time when peace meant the victory of secession. Yet events 
move as they are ordered. The blessing of the Pope at Rome on the head of Duke 
Maximilian could not revive in the nineteenth century the ecclesiastical policy of 
the sixteenth ; and the result is only a new proof that there can be no prosperity 
in the state without religious freedom. 

THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA. 

When it came home to the consciousness of the Americans that the war which 
they were waging was a war for the liberty of all the nations of the world, for free- 
liom itself, they thanked God for the severity of the trial to which he put their 
sincerity, and nerved themselves for their duty with an inexorable will. The 
President was led along by the greatness of their self-sacrificing example; and aa 
a child, in a dark night on a rugged way, catches hold of the hand of its father for 
guidance and support, he clung fast to the hand of the people, and moved calmly 
through the gloom. While the statesmanship of Europe was scoffing at the hope- 
less vanity of their efforts, they put forth such miracles of energy as the history of 
the world had never known. The navy of the United States drawing into the public 
'service the willing militia of the seas, doubled its tonnage in eight months, and es- 
tablished an actual blockade from Cape Hatteras to the Rio Grande; in the course 
of the war it was increased five fold in men and in tonnage, while the inrentive 
genius of ti)e country devised more effective kinds of ordnance, and new forms of 
naval architecture in wood and iron. There went into the field, for various terms 
of service, about two million m^eo; and in March last the men in service exceeded 
a million ; that is to say, one of everj' two able-bodied men took some part in the 
war; and &t -oue time every fourth able-bodied man was in the field. In one sin- 
gle month, one hundred and sixty-five thousand were recruited into service. Once, 
within four weeks, Ohio organized and placed in the field, forty two regiments of 
infantry — nearly thirty -six thousand men; and Ohio was like other States in the 
east and in the west. The "well-mounted cavalry nujubered eighty-four thousand ; 
of horses there were bought, first and last, two-thirds of a million. In the move- 
ments of troops science came in aid of patriotism ; so that, to choose a single in- 
stance cut of many, an army twenty-three tliousand strong, with its artillerj', trains, 
baggag<^ and animals, were moved by rail from the Potomac to the Tennessee, twelve 
hundred miles, in seven daj's. In the long marches, wonders of military construc- 
tion bridged the rivers; and whenever an array halted, ample supplies awaited 
them at their ever changing base. The vile thought that life is tlie greatest of 
blessings did not rise up. In six hundred and twenty five battles, and severe skir- 
mishes, blood flowed like water. It streamed over the grassy plains; it stained 
the rocks ; the undergrowth of the forests was red with it ; and the armies marched 
on wfth raajt-stic courage from one conflict to another, knowing that th&y were 
fighting for God and liberty. The organization of the medical department met its 
infinitely multiplied duties with exactness and despatch. At the news of a battle, 
the best surgeons of our cities hastened to the field, to offer the zealous aid of the 
greatest experience and skill. Tlie gentlest and most refined of women left homes 
of luxury and ease, to build hospital tents near the armies, and serve as nurses to 
the sick and dying. Besides the large supply of religious teachers by the public, 
the congregations spared to their brothers in the field the ablest ministers. The 
Christian Commission, which expended five and a half millions, sent four thousand 
clergymen chosen out of the best, to keep unsoiled the religious character of the 
men, and made gifts of clothes and food and medicine. The organisation of private 
charity assumed unheard-of dimensions. The Sanitary Commission, which had 
seven thousand societies, distributed, under the direction of an unpaid board, spon- 
taneous contributions to the amount of fifteen millions, in supplies or money — a 
million and a half in money from California alone—- and dotted the scene of war 
from Paducah to Port Royal, from Belle Plain, Virginia, to Bjownsville, Texas, 
with homes and lodges. 

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION. 

The country had for its allies the river Mississippi, which would not be divided^ 
and the range of mountains which carried the stronghold of the free through West- 
ern Virginia and Kentuckj' and Tennessee to the highlands cf Alabama, But it 
invoked the still higher power of imnjortal justice. In ancient Greece, where se?- 



13 



par- 



vifcude was t'-'j, universal custom, it was held that if a child were to strike its" pa 
ent. the _tvc 'should defend the parent, and by that act recover his freedom. After 
vain r^g^stance, Lincoln, who had tried to solve the question by gradual emancipa- 
tion, by colonization, and by compensation, at last saw that slavery must be abol- 
ished, or the Republic must die; and on the first day of January," 1863, he wrote 
liberty on the banners of the armies. When this proclamation, which struck the 
fetters from three millions of slaves, reached Europe, Lord Russell, a eou-tryman 
of Milton and Wilberforee, eagerly put him?elf forward to speak of it in the name 
ot mankind, saying: " It is of a very strange nature;" "a measure of war of a very 
questionable kmd ;" an act "of vengeance on the slave owner," that does no more 
than " profess to emancipate slaves where the United States authorities cannot 
make emancipation a reality." Kow there was no part of the country embraced in 
the proclamation where the United States could not and did not make emancipation 
a reality. Those who saw Lincoln most frequently had never before heard him 
speak with bitternees of any human being; but he 'did not conceal how keenly he 
felt that he had been wronged by Lord Russell. And he wrote, in reply to another 
caviller : " The emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops were the great- 
est blows yet dealt to the rebellion. The job was a great national one; and let 
none be slighted who bore anlionorable part in it. I hope peace will come ^oon 
and come to stay ; then will there be some black men who can remember that thev 
nave helped mankind to this great consummation." 

RUSSIA AND CHINA. 

The proclamation accomplished its end, for, during this war, our armies came rnta 
military possession of every State in rebellion. Then, too, was called forth, t^le 
new power that comes from the simultaneous diffusion of thought and fsaling 
among the nations of mankind. The mysterious sympathy of the m^illions through- 
out the world was given spontaneously. The best writers of Europe waked the 
conscience of the thoughtful, till the intelligent moral sentiment of the Old World 
was drawn to the side of the unlettered statesmen of the West Russia who-e em- 
peror had just accomplished one of the grandest acts in the course of time by rais- 
ing twenty millions of bondmen into free-holders, and thus ass'^ii.ig the 4owtk 
and culture^ of a Russian people, remained our unwavering frisad. >rom the old- 
est abode of civilization, which gave the first example of an imperial government 
with equality among the people. Prince Kung, the secretary of state for foreign af- 
fairs, remembered the saying of Confucius, that we should not do to others whafc 
we would not that others should do to us, and in the nama of the emperor of China. 
Closed Its ports againBt the war ships and privateers of "the seditious." 

CONTINUANCE OF TBE WAE. 
The war continued, with all the peoples of tb« world for anxious spectators. Its 
cares weighed heavily on Lincoln, and his faae was ploughed with She furrows of 
thought and sadness. ^\ ith malice towards none, free from the spirit of revenge 
victory made him importunate for peace ;; and his enemies never doubted his word' 
for nll^K'f . f abounding clemency. He longed to utter papdon as the word 
t?L if\r,^ not unless the freedom of the negro should be assured. The grand bat- 
tam cIh tP"°^„'^^'"Af ^^^ "' Nashville, of Fort Donelson,. Malvern Hill, Antie- 
New S ? V?' i"k Wilderness of Virginia, Winchester, .Nashville, the capture of 
.^ew Orleans, \icksburg. Mobile, Fort Fisher, the march from Atlanta, and he cap- 
ture of Savannh and Charleston, all foretold the ksue. Still more the self i^^eE- 
the rnHniM^'ri',' ' K ^'"'^^ °^ the continent , of Maryland, whose sons never heari^ 
fh!f K Fk • ' "^'^^ '"^ ^^^^^^^ ^' ^^^^-^ ^^^y '-^^S out to earth and heav-p 
llZ^^ thejoice of h^r own peopla, sh« took her place among the free; of Tan- 
^wl'. iP"''*','^ through fire and Wood, through sorrows and the shadow of 

death, to work out her own deliveraace, and by the faithfulness of her own sons t^o 
Torn uT'l . like the eagle-proved that victory was deserved and wauld be 
worth all that It cost. If words of mercy uttered as they were by Lincoln on the 
r. wm '^f °'^'7^^e defiantly repelled, the armies of the country, moving with 

deaTbi'o:^ i-rbdiio:?'''" '^ ^'^ "^^'' '''' "'^'^^"^ ' ^^^'■'^^ '^^ --^^^ -'-^ « 

LINCtiLN's ASSASSINATION. 
Where, in the history of nations, had a Chief iMngistrate possessed more source- 
3f consolafon and joy than Lincoln? His countrymen had shown their lovJb; 

coZ-v\anf,n.T"^^''-^.°^''w'''- 7^' '''^='"? "^'- ^'^'^t '-^ .livid. dthi 

Thenitmnhn?> ' ^°<iP7^'^t%gr,efwas hushed by the grandeur of its results. 

ment of th^P rfT-^'"'^''T^- ^''''^':"^' '^°° '° ^' «««"^-*^ '■«'-^^'«'- by an amend.- 
nient of the Constitution. His persistent gentleness had conquered for him a, 



14 

kindlier feeling on the part of the South. His scofTers among the grandees o; 
Europe began to do him honor. The laboring classes everywhere saw in his ad- 
vancement their own. All peonies sent him their benedictions. At the moment 
of the height of his fame, to which his humility and modesty added charms, he 
fell by the hand of the assassin ; and the only triumph awarded him was the march 
to the grave. 

THE GREATNESS OF MAN. 

This is no time to say that human glory is but dust and ashes, that we mortals 
are no more than shadows in pursuit of shadows. How mean a thing were man. 
if there were not that within him which is higher than himself — if he could, cot 
master the illu.=ions of sense, and discern the connections of events by a superior 
light which comes from God. He so shares the divine impulses that he has power 
to subject interested passions to love of country, and personal ambition to the ea- 
nobleraent of man. Not in vain has Lincoln lived, for he has helped to make this 
Republic an example of justice, with no caste but the caste of humanity. Th»i 
heroes who led our armies and ships into battle — Lyon, McPherson, Rej'nolds, 
Sedgwick, "U'adsworth, Foote, Ward, with their compeers — and fell in the service, 
did not die in vain ; they and the mj^riads of n^sele^s martyrs, and he, the chief 
martyr, died willingly "that government of the people, by the people, and for the 
people, shall not perish from the earth." 

THE JUST DIED FOR THE UNJUST. 

The assas-inatioQ of Lincoln, who was so free from malice, has by .?ome myste- 
rious influence struck the country with solemn awe, and hushed, instead of exciting, 
the passion for revenge. It seems as if the just had died for the unjust. When I 
think of the fiieads 1 have lost in this war — and every one who hears me has, like 
myself, lost those whom he most loved — there is no consolation to be derived from 
victims on the scaffold, or from anything but the established union of the regen- 
erated nation. 

CHARACTEK OF LINCOLN. 

In his character, Lincoln was through and through an American. He is the first 
uative of the region west of the Alleghanies to attain to the highest station ; and 
how hap[ij' it is that the man who was brought forward as the natuial outgrowth 
and first fruits of that region should have been of unblemished parity in private 
life, a good son, a kiiid husband, a most affectionate father, and, as a man, so gentle 
to all. As t- integrity, Douglas, his rival, said of him, "Lincoln is the honestest 
taan I ever knew,"" 

The habits of his mind were those of meditation and inward thought, rather than 
of action. He excelled in logical statement, more than in executive ability. He 
reasoned clearly, his reflective judgment was good, and his purposes were fixed; 
but, like the Hamlet of his only poet, his will was tardy in action; aud for this 
reason, and not from humility or tenderness of feeling, he sometimes dcjtlored that 
the duty wiiich devolved on him had not fallen to the lot of another. He was 
skilful in analysis; discerned with precision the central idea on which a question 
turned, and knev." how to disengage it and present it by itself in a few homely, 
strong old English words that would be intelligible to all. He delighted to es- 

Eress his opinions by apothegoj, illustrate them by a parable, or drive them home 
y a story. 
Lincoln gained a name by discussing questions which, of all others, most easily 
lead to faua'.icism; but he was never carried away by enthusiastic zeal, never in- 
dulged in extravagant language; never hurried to support extreme measures, neve- 
allowed himself to be conti'SIied by sudden impulses. During t'-° 'inigreas of the 
election at which he was chosen President, he expressed no opiv ; ,•,? .^at went be- 
yond the Jefferson proviso' * 1784:. Like Jefferson and Lafaye: ■.■ /.i^neyfaUh in 
tbt intuitions of the people, and read those intuitions witii rate' 'f^Pu^,-. He 
knew how to bide his time, and was less apt to be in advance of puolla opiuica 
than to lag behind. He never sought to electrify the public by taking an advanced 
position with a banner of opinion; but rather studied to mova forward compaotly, 
exposing no detachment in front or rear; so that the course of his Administration 
might have been explained as the calculating policy of a shr- ., 1 watchful 

poiiticiao, had there not been seen behind i*^. a fixedness of pri; "^^ hioh from 
the first detcriained his purpose and grew more iatense with every j'ear. ousaming 
his life by it* energy. Yet his sensibilities were not scute, he had no vividness of 
ici-igination to picture to his mind the b.oris>r3 of the battle-field or tive sufferings 
iu. Jiospitals ; his conscience was more tender than his feelings. 



15 

Lincoln vras one of the most unassuming of men. In time of svicces?, he gave 
credit for it to those whom he employed, to the people, and to the providence of 
God. He did not know what ostentation is; when he became President be was 
rathtr saddened than elated, and his conduct and manners showed moje than ever 
his belief that all men are born equal. He was no respecter of persons ; and neither 
rank, nor repatation, nor services overawed him. In judging of character he failed 
indiscrimination, and his appointments were sometimes bad; but he r-adily de- 
ferred to public opinio;], and in appointing the head of the armies he followed the 
manifest preference of Congress. 

A good President will secure unity to his administration by hie own supervision, 
of the various departments. Lincoln, who accepted advice readily, v^^as never gov- 
erned by any member of his Cabinet, and could not be raovt-d from a purpose de- 
liberately formed ; but his supervision of afi'airs was unsteady and incomplete; 
and sometimes, by a sudden interference transcending the usual forms, he rather 
confused than advanced the public business. If he ever failed in the scrupulous 
regard due to the relative rights of Congress, it was so evidently' without design 
that no conflict couid ensue, or evil precedent be established. Trutli he would 
receive from any one; but, when impressed by others, he did not use their opinions 
till by reflection he had made them thoroughly his own. 

It was the nature of Lincoln lo forgive. When hostilities eeastd, he who had 
always sent forth the flag with every one of its stars in the field, was eager to 
receive back his returning countrymen, and meditated " some new announ^iement 
to the South." The amendoient of the G institution abolishing slaverj" bad his 
most earnest and unwearied support. During the rage of war we get a glimpse 
into his soul from his privately suggesting to Louisiana that " in definitig the fran- 
chise someofthe colored people might be let in," saying; " They would p -obably 
help, in some trying time, to come to keep the jewel of liberty in the rumilr of 
freedom." In 1857 he avowed himself "not in favor of what he improperly called 
" negro citizenship;" for the 'JonsiJtution discriminates between citizens and elec- 
tors. Three days before his death he declared his preference that " the elective 
franchise were now conferred on the very intelligent of the colored men and on 
those of them who served our cause as soldiers;" but he wished it done by the 
States themselves, and he never harbored the thought of exacting it from a new 
government as a condition of its recognition. 

The last day of his life beamed with sunshine, as he sent by the Speaker of this 
House his friendly greetings to the men of the Rocky niouutai:)9 and the Pacitic 
slope ; as he contemplated the return of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to fruit- 
ful industry ; as he welooMed in advance hundreds of thonsanCs of e nigrants from 
Europe; as his ej'c kindled witii enthusiasm at the coming weiUh of tlie nation. 
And so, with these thoughts for his country, he was removed from the toils and 
temptations of this life and was at peace, 

palm:er3ton and Lincoln. 

Hardly had the late President been consigned to the grnve, when the prime 
minister of England died, full of years and honoi-s. Palmerstou traced his lineage 
to the time of the conqueror ; Lincoln went back only to hi.- grandfather. Pal- 
merston received his education from the best schollars of Harrow, Edinburgh, and 
Cambridge; Liscola's early teachers were the silent forest, the prairie, the river, 
and the stars. Palmerstoa was in public life for si.xty years; Lincoln for but a 
tenth of that time, Palraerston was a skilful guide of an establishe-d aiistocracy; 
Lincoln a leader or rather a cunipauioQ of the people. Palmerstoa was exclusively 
an Englishman, and made his buast in the House of Comiuons that the interest of 
England was his Shibboleth ; Lincoln thought always of mankind as well as his 
own cou/dswu. and served human nature itself. Pilmerstou from his narrowness as 
an En^y' ■ i«h did not endear his country to any one court or to any one people, 
^iJwb^" .•Used uneasiness and dislike; Lincoln ^.eft America more beloved than. 
'^"'.h •• >»tithe peoples of Europe, Palmerston was self possessed and adroit in. 
reconciling the conflicting claims of the factions of the aristocracy; Lincoln, frank 
and ingenious, knew how to poise himself on the conflicting opinions of (he people. 
Palmerston was capable of insolence towards the weak, quick to the sense of honor, 
not heedful of right ; Lincoln rejected counsel given only as a matter of poMcj', 
and V • ' vf-capable of being wilfully unjust Palmerston, essentially superficial, 
deli;: ct. ..banter and knew how to divert grave oppcs!ti(«n by playful levity; 
Line-«iQ was a man of infinite jest on his lips, with saddest earnestness at his heart. 
Palmerston was sij^ir representative of the aristocratic liberality of the day, choos- 
ing f«p his tr!b\nff4W the conscience of humanity, but the House of Commons; 
Lincoln took to heart the eternal truths of liberty, obeyed them as the commands 
of Providence, an3 accepted the ham&a race as the judge of his fidelity. Palmer*- 




























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